Debian Multimedia :: ALSA - Sound From 1 Source Being Played Only
May 29, 2011
I decided to break free from the horrible life of a windows vista user. I like my new debian (Wheezy) installation and everything worked fine so far. Now I stumbled upon a huge problem. When I want startup and login into my gnome installation the first application I open gets to play sound and others after that just don't work. I looked endlessly on google but in my understanding the problem is within the ALSA driver.
Some specs :
OS version : Debian 7 (Wheezy)
Laptop brand : Packerd Bell Easynote LJ-65
Kernel installed : 2.6.38-2-686 (Standard one in wheezy)
I am using a couple of Debian Distro (Sid and Lenny) add some Ubuntu into the mix. I made the switch because I was amazed and satisfied with Debian --> once installed, everything works. For me that's okay for o so many years now. I don't question a lot because it just works and I do my job on it satisfactorily. Namely programming the LAMP style programming. Lately I have been using Debian to communicate over the internet -- using Skype and Pidgin and other such things, not to mention listening to music, watching movies, just using the default applications when I originally install Debian.
Along the way, I need to configure something -- that is desktop related -- like the screen resolution of a new LCD monitor replacing the old one and such. Now about my sound -- I'm not touching it because it is working. But that is not the case always. Now I have a constant error -- it is irritating. Rhythmbox don't make a sound always when I have open a web browser (iceweasel, chrome, epiphany) and a site with multimedia object on it -- like a video or something. So how do I correct this? How do I know, too what I am using -- ALSA or Pulseaudio?
In the process of trying to get the softmodem working, I finally attached speakers to this laptop and tried to play some sounds. Nothing but silence. Both the KDE system sounds and a stand-alone player (noatun) produce nothing. No error messages that I can find, either. (That might explain why the softmodem is dead, too...) I've run alsaconf several times, and even uninstalled and reinstalled ALSA. It thinks it is working, but is not. What sorts of things do I need to check to find where it isn't working?
Info: The motherboard is a FIC 3500W with the VIA P4M800 integrated chipset. This includes the VIA 8237 sound system, which is what ALSA detects and tries to use. The machine also has a Realtek ALC655 but I don't see any drivers for that in the lsmod output, so this is a possible source of the trouble.
I have recently acquired a Lenovo Q150 machine and attempting to use it as a HTPC. I've been reading that with this platform a newer kernel is required to make wireless, sound and a few other tweaks work correctly--so I bumped up to testing repositories to upgrade to the 2.6.38 kernel.[URL]...
The audio on this device has been more than a pain. I'm currently using XBMC to play media on this device and after setting the outputs to custom: plughw:1,9 sound is played correctly. I found this out by using alsamixer, selecting the sound card with the F6 key (Nvidia 1) unmutting all outputs, quiting, and running speaker-test -D plughw:1,X where X is the sub-device from the output of aplay -l until sound could be heard from the receiver.
Now my problem is that applications like mplayer, and iceweasel won't output any sound. I'd prefer not to use the optical out on the device and would like to send sound over HDMI. Has anyone had any luck getting it to work as it should?
I've also installed pulseaudio, not too sure if this is really needed. I've also used module assistant before upgrading to compile alsa from source, it worked but i just decided to upgrade the kernel instead of dealing with m-a every time an update comes through. Linux floppy 2.6.38-2-amd64 #1 SMP Thu Apr 7 04:28:07 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Sometimes (quite frequently) during the normal use of my laptop (64bit Ubuntu 9.10), if I do not play songs nor anything else, I get annoying sounds, like when guitarists cable their instruments while ampli are on.Apparently this happens particularly when I open new windows or new tabs in my browser, when I shut down my pc, etc...
I would like sound from mono sources to play in both speakers/earphones. How do I do this? Currently, it plays in only one side (which makes for an odd listening experience).I generally use banshee to play sound.
I have installed xubuntu version 10. My sound card is a Yamaha dS-1S, and seems to be properly configured. Alsa mixer doesn't indicates any error. However, I can't manage to get any sound. I have checked that jacks are correctly plugged.
I'm running Kubuntu 9.10 X64, and am using ALSA for my sound. I have no trouble with sound: VLC, Adobe's Flash plugin, Java, etc. all work properly. When I run the Gnash standalone player, sound does not work at all.
I'm trying out Konqueror on Debian Lenny. I'm annoyed by the sounds it plays along with message boxes (for instance: sound of a breaking glass on message boxes showing an error). I can't neither find any setting for that nor I've been able to find some general setting.
1. I run Suse 11.2 with two sound cards , one HDA comes with motherboard and second is USB, which I use for skype and talking. In YAST everything is fine the motherboard card is marked as prime card and the usb card is marked as second. But often when I log in alsa decides that second card is main and I have to pull out the USB card, run command "rcalsasound restart" and put the USB back afterward. It is a way that to be fixed in the way that alsa remember my choices forever. 2. The other problem is that from time to time the sound suddenly dies and I have to bring it up with rcalsasound restart again.
But I have to admit that their significant improvement with managing sound with PulseAudio.
I've got sound - I hear all the system sounds, I can play sound files, CDs, etc. But I have not been able to record and play back anything with success.
Originally, when I would record (either with arecord or with audacity) I would get extremely low quality sound, with lots of noise and crackling, and my recorded voice was barely audible (even with volume turned up to max). I played with alsamixer for hours without being able to improve matters.
Things are worse now. I tried installing alsa-firmware, as indicated at SDB:Audio troubleshooting - openSUSE. I also tried updating alsa following instructions given at SDB:Alsa-update - openSUSE. I'm not sure which of these changes did it, but the result is that I can no longer record ANYTHING at all. I get absolutely nothing, not even the low quality noise and crackling I was getting before. It's as if there is no audio input at all.
Uninstalling alsa-firmware and reverting back to the older alsa version (1.0.20) didn't change a thing.
I'm running openSUSE 11.2, kernel 2.6.31.14-0.6-desktop, alsa 1.0.20. My sound card is a Creative X-Fi (by the way, yast cannot detect my card, another problem I have never solved).
I have Ubuntu Lucid. If i dont' mistake, it should be possible to hear several applications playing sound simultaneously, with ALSA. But if 1 app is already playing, then starting a second one give always "device is busy".
I recently converted an amd 64 bit WINdows machine to Lucid 64 bit. Everything has gone well. I had numerous issues with Pulseaudio that I removed it. Sound with Alsa has been great, including system theme sounds. I can record via a mike as well. What I cannot do is to capture sounds coming through the sound card. When I record I am getting empty files. The mixer indicates that there are two capture devices. Here is some data on my audio card.
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: ALC888 Analog [ALC888 Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 1: ALC888 Digital [ALC888 Digital] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: ATI HDMI [ATI HDMI] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
I was having a problem with ALSA, installed OSS, but now nothing works. I want to remove OSS, and reinstall ALSA. I am thinking about reinstalling, but I have all my stuff on here, so don't really want to.
I have just installed OS 11.3 onto a lenovo desktop / Thinkcentre that previously had vista installed on it. With Opensuse I am having trouble getting much sound volume. With Vista the volume was fine but with Opensuse I have PCM, Master running pretty much on full. This gives me a respectable volume but I think there should really be more left in the tank from what I have it at. Is there any way to increase the gain in Alsa? The sound device shows in KDE as HDA Intel (AD198x) using xine backend.
So i upgraded to 10.04 a few months ago, right after it was released. clean install. it worked perfectly out of the box, or so it seemed. I had had sound problems in 9.10 that i didn't experience after i upgraded... until i tried to use some headphones a few days ago. when i connected the headphones, the speakers wouldn't mute. i thought it was no big deal. i had the same issue in 9.10 and it was fixed after i upgraded alsa. i figured i'd try the same thing. I used the same alsa upgrade script i used last time [URL] and it fixed the jack sensing and the sound worked perfectly... for about 5 minutes. after a short while of playing audio, sound would stop playing. i'd stop getting sound from video files, audio files, and even from my browser. i'd have to reboot to get sound again... only to lose it again in about 10 minutes. Now it's regressed to the point where i have no sound even after i reboot.
weird thing is, when i test out an audio file with aplay, it works... even if i just get garbage sound from some mp3 files.
anyway, i've got an HP dv7 and this is my aplay -l output
Code: sleepee@sleepee-laptop:~$ aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog] Subdevices: 1/1
At least, I think it was the update that broke it. Anyway, my sound was working fine yesterday. I have gone through this thread to try and fix my sound, and it appears that my sound card has been uninstalled.
Step 1. aplay -l Code: aplay: device_list:235: no soundcards found...
Step 2. lspci -v Code: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 01) Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Device 5770 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel Kernel modules: intel-agp .....
Code: sudo modprobe snd-intel8x0 WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base, it will be ignored in a future release. FATAL: Error inserting snd_intel8x0 (/lib/modules/2.6.31-22-generic/kernel/sound/pci/snd-intel8x0.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
Last time my sound wasn't working, I was directed to this thread. The script from this thread might work again, but if it will just be erased after every update, I'd like something a bit more permanent.
the sound stops while playing music or movies and can't be restartet. I already upgraded alsa to 1.0.24.2. I managed to fix the problem somehow after hours of deinstalling and reinstalling alsa and trying loads of things, but I did not really find the cause of the problem.
I had an issue with my mic so I decided to upgrade alsa to 1.0.23 to see if this will fix the problem. I used alsa driver/utils/lib 1.0.23 from alsa-project.org So it fixed it...but now I don't have sound in Flash (youtybe videos, etc.). System sound works perfectly (ev en Skype is working) I'm using Ubuntu 9.10 64bit and Google Chrome browser. flash -> flashplugin-nonfree
So I've got a new system on which I had to re-install Debian, and I've been trying to fix the sound today, but it doesn't seem to work... I've kept the same ALSA configuration (except a minor adjustment to the card number as this system appears to have two cards instead of one), but it doesn't seem to work as expected. I got this weird error while running an app that uses ALSA:
Code: Select allALSA sound driver initializing... ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:1024:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave --> (Device: default)...Failed: Operation not permitted
In VLC it works fine, provided that I manually choose the right device under Audio -> Audio Device.here's my /etc/asound.conf:
I posted my question on Linx.com, but have not received an answer after 75 viewers to my question: Ok my respected Linux genius. This is my project. First I have a Windows / Linux combo OS set-up! In my windows, I use the latest realtex sound driver as this gives me complete control with recording output control and Microphone gain control. In the set-up, there is a stereo mixer component with is necessary to engage the direct sound recording from my sound card. To make this all come together, I use a sound recording software [ free sound recorder 9 ] and to convert the recording to a wma, wav, or meg, I use Roxio 10 to produce audio cd's to play on all CD Players.
The challenge for me in Linux is to create the same set-up with Linux applications to produce the same professional results.Presently, my kubuntu 10.04 has Alsa sound drivers, with a version of realtek incorporated. I have the Alsa mixer software as well as Audacity as the sound recorder program. But no matter what I do, audacity depends on the microphone to record, which makes the final recording pure crap. If I lower the microphone boost or gain in my Alsa mix, then Audacity can not record the ambient sound from the speaker output and it will only recognize mono and pulse as the sound method. With the pre mention set up, Who has a set up identical to what is offered to windows that will do exactly the same for Linux. I basically want to record directly from the sound card in my Linux, without depending on using my microphone and then a CD burning program to make the conversion to MPEG or the necessary file format for the burned CD to play in all CD players, not just on a PC) I am trying to stay away from command line language in the terminal. I really need a replacement for Audacity,cause Free Sound Recorder is made for Windows Platform......I need a Linux sound Guru for the answer.I am not doing this to pirate music....I have over 3,450 music track inside my Rhapsody subscription and I like to record music for personal listening on my portable CD player and at 0.99 per track charge to do this in Rhapsody, I might as well by a recording studio and hire the singing artist.Basically in short..I need to know if there is a setting I can engage in my Alsa Mixer panel that will allow me to record directly from my sound card without using my microphone as a default. When I mute the microphone in my Alsa control panel, my Audacity program will not record using the microphone, which I do not want to use anyway. I just want to record straight from my sound card, as this eliminates all hiss, distortion that is inherited with using a microphone.
I should create the bridge between a linear input and output. It is desirable, with possibility to impose effects on a sound. (But it isn't obligatory)
I have a new install of 10.10 on a Toshiba Satellite with a dual boot of win7. I installed 10.10 and on the first night I swore the headphone jack sent sound to my external speakers (may of been plugged in during install). Then the next day I couldn't get any sound out of the jack. Sound kept coming out of my internal speakers. In win7 the jack worked normally. In Ubuntu I have checked sound preferences and my alsa mixer. There is no listing for a headphone jack (so it is not muted).
Alsa is currently using my HDMI port to play sounds through using card0 "ATI R6xx HDMI". I'm on a laptop and I want to be able to use my laptop speakers and headphone jack so how do I set alsa to use card1 which is "Conexant CX20582"?
I've got a Leadtek TV2000 Expert tuner and it was connected with my soundcard on motherboard succesfully. Before many years it worked percectly with my early Ubuntu version 7.04 and 8.04 - that used the AUX for soundlevels in the alsamixer. In TVTIME I've get all my TV-channels but without sound...
Always when I run tvtime it sends me:
"mixer: Can't open device /dev/mixer, mixer volume and mute unavailable. mixer: No such mixer channel 'aux', using channel 'line'."
I know sound is a recurring issue around here, but I can't find any posts/FAQs that address my particular problem.
Here it goes: When I first installed ALSA, I unsurprisingly had no sound. OK, no big deal, I'll just un-install and re-install ALSA and see if that helps. No, instead ALSA won't even recognize my card.
lspci shows:
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 05) alsactl init gives: alsactl: init:1743: No soundcards found... alsamixer: cannot open mixer: No such device or address aplay -l: aplay: device_list:235: no soundcards found...